(JTA) — An inmate in a Florida prison made a second request to be ritually circumcised.
Pablo Manuel Diaz, 37, in a letter to the Florida Department of Corrections asked for permission to have a bris in the infirmary of the Blackwater Correctional Facility in Milton performed by a mohel, or ritual circumciser, the Florida Sun Sentinel reported Wednesday.
Diaz, who is serving a life sentence, has a Jewish mother and has been active in the Jewish prison ministry, according to the newspaper.
The prison’s warden turned down Diaz’s first circumcision request.
Diaz is being represented in his request by students from the Stanford Law School’s Religious Liberty Clinic in California. The Bris Yosef Yitzchak organization has offered to perform the circumcision at no charge and said it will file a federal lawsuit if Diaz’s request is denied.
A response to the request has been requested by the middle of the month.
Florida’s Department of Corrections was sued recently by the U.S. Department of Justice for its failure to provide kosher meals to Jewish prisoners who request them due to cost-cutting measures. The department said recently it would make the kosher meals available.
